Shooting Silhouettes With Digital Camera
It’s easy to photograph a silhouette—in fact, new photographers do it all the time. They just don’t always do it on purpose.
The easiest way to photograph a silhouette is simply to position yourself so that the subject you would like to silhouette is arranged against a bright background, such as the sky. Point the camera directly into the sky and slightly depress your camera’s shutter release—that locks in the exposure based on the bright sky. Then recompose your picture and shoot. What you’ll probably get is a grossly underexposed subject, since the exposure was based on the brighter sky. If your subject isn’t quite silhouetted, you can underexpose the image even more using the EV controls on your camera. You might also want to use your camera’s spot meter to lock the exposure on a bright piece of sky.
You may find that the subject is out of focus because the camera locked its focus on infinity when you pointed it at the sky. If that’s the case, check to see if your camera has a separate exposure lock button, and use it. If not, you may need to set the exposure manually (or use the EV control) or focus the camera manually instead. One way or the other, if your subject is too close to focus at infinity, you need to find a way to separate the exposure and focusing aspects of your camera.
